The Evanston Community Foundation was established in 1986 under the auspices of the Evanston United Way. Initial funding of $150,000 from the Baxter International Foundation to Evanston United Way was used to make the first five years of grants, and a $100,000 matching grant from Evanston United Way’s sale of the 828 Davis Street building was used to seed the unrestricted endowment fund that is still our core fund today.

As envisioned by its founders, the Foundation provided a new type of funding for the Evanston community—grants for emerging organizations, seed money for new projects, support for new ideas could be tried for the good of the community. These values continue to guide our work eighteen years later.

The concept of awarding grants from endowed funds to a broad and changing roster of grantees differentiated the new foundation’s goals from the annual fundraising drives of Evanston United Way to provide general operating support for a stable roster of human service agencies.

In 1992, the board initiated the Leadership Evanston program and a field of interest endowment fund to support it. In 1997, the Foundation added new funds for United Way and the Faith Vilas Fund for Youth. In 1998 Northwestern’s student-run philanthropy, Dance Marathon, began making ECF the secondary beneficiary of its annual fundraiser to increase Foundation grants budgets.

The new foundation continued to grow slowly through 2000, when it received its largest individual gift of nearly $450,000. In 2001, the foundation engaged its own executive director to lead the separation of the Foundation from Evanston United Way, increase public awareness of the Foundation, provide a fuller range of services to donors and constituent organizations, and accelerate the development of endowment growth to meet a higher percentage of demonstrated community needs and aspirations.

Today the Foundation manages $5.6 Million in charitable funds, has 40 different funds, two grants programs, several leadership and community program initiatives, and serves rapidly growing numbers of donors. It is a member of the Council on Foundations, the Donors Forum of Chicago, and partners with seventeen Illinois community foundations through the CommunityWorks Initiative of the Grand Victoria Foundation. The Foundation is also certified as meeting COF’s National Standards for Community Foundations.

The growth of total charitable payouts—in grants, donor-advised giving, and agency fund payouts from $62,000 in 1998 to more than $500,000 in 2005, illustrates our progress to date in fulfilling the founders’ vision of new community-based resources through the Evanston Community Foundation.